International private equity offers an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. It has been the fast growing capital flow to the region with more than $50 billion annually and a 20 percent of cross-border capital flows.
However, new policy is needed from development finance institutions, national governments and bi-lateral agencies to capture their benefits. Policy priorities include:
• Being more proactive at an earlier and smaller level of enterprise development
• More holistic policy that develops 'eco-systems' for sectors and industries
• More sophisticated and well-priced risk mitigation that is more closely aligned with investors needs
• Capital flow management to manage risks to financial stability especially from mutual funds and ETFs
• Universal, but pragmatic, standards for responsible investment tailored to the sub-Saharan African context especially for energy, healthcare and education.